Overview

Director Damien Chazelle takes a tonal turn following the swooning La La Land, bringing to the fore the tension and terror displayed in his debut Whiplash, with this intermittently nerve-shredding account of the 1969 Moon landings. Eschewing the jingoistic thrills of films like The Right Stuff (1983), Chazelle instead presents the 20th-century triumph as an intimate character study of the inscrutable Neil Armstrong, brilliantly portrayed by Gosling as the emotionally cold - almost blank - portal through which America's grand visions are tethered. Focusing on the psychic toll the moon-race has on Armstrong's wife (Claire Foy) and family, First Man questions whether such symbolic feats are ever worth the human cost.